r they were bribed by the
Burgundians or merely exasperated because the heroine had not performed
miracles, the act was clear treachery, and the pitiful little moat of
this town was the impassable barrier that shut Jeanne d'Arc out of that
France she had saved.

An archer of Picardy was her immediate captor, and he delivered her, for
a price, to his commander, Jean de Luxembourg. A great prize was this
witch who had all but ruined the English cause in France, and proud must
have been her captor: his prisoner was a girl of eighteen. But had she
not fallen into good hands? Jean de Luxembourg was not only a member of
one of the most distinguished families of Europe, but he was a knight, a
leader in that grand organization of chivalry whose first object and
proudest boast was protection of the weak, and gentleness and courtesy
toward women. As Michelet remarks: "It was a hard trial for the chivalry
of the day." The age of chivalry was already gone, though the name was
on the lips of all: chivalry, even if it could have withstood the
phenomenal progress in the condition of the lower orders of
society,--have we not said that the peasant brothers of Jeanne were
ennobled by royal letters patent?--and the invention of firearms, which
tended to equalize all men on the field of battle, could not have
withstood the debasing influence of years of guerrilla warfare. The
knight had not only lost his physical superiority on the battlefield,
but he had lost something infinitely more precious--his lofty ideals.
Knightly orders continued to be founded, but they were the amusements of
dilettanti in honor and ancient custom. Furthermore, even had chivalry
not faded from its theoretic brilliancy, it is entirely possible that
Jeanne would have been deemed beyond the pale of its protection. As the
leper was shunned, as the Jewish usurer was persecuted by mediaeval
society, so was the witch outlawed by public sentiment; and it was as a
witch that the English were resolved to treat the deliverer of Orleans.

Confined at first in the camp at Margny, near Compiegne, Jeanne was
subsequently removed to the Chateau de Beaulieu, near Loches, the very
place from which Agnes Sorel took her title of Dame de Beaulieu. The
Maid was removed again to Beaurevoir, and it is pleasant to record the
kindly sympathy displayed by the ladies of Jean de Luxembourg's family,
who ministered to her comfort, provided her with women's clothes, and
did whatever charity su